"Yes, ma'am. On the way home from the shop to get his lunch, he had to stop and take a look at his treasures," Fred continued.
"He did not see you watching him, I suppose, Fred?"
"Oh! not a bit of it," replied the boy, smiling. "I looked out for that."
"Have you the opals with you now, my dear boy?" she asked.
"No, ma'am," replied Fred. "You see, I thought it would be better if you could see Gabe handling the things, and know by the evidence of your own eyes he was the guilty one."
"That sounds very clever of you, Fred," Miss Muster remarked, with a look of sincere admiration. "Perhaps now you may even have figured out some sort of plan that would allow of my doing such a thing?"
"I have; that is, if you don't think it too much bother," he answered.
"Too much bother?" she echoed; "after what I have done in my haste to bring sorrow into the happy home of my niece, nothing could ever be too much trouble for me to attempt. And, besides, I should really like to face that unhappy boy, to reproach him for his wrongdoing. I know his mother, and she is a very good woman. Yes, tell me, Fred, what is your plan?"
"It's simple enough, to be sure," observed the boy. "Just give Gabe an extra chance to-morrow morning to slip into that parlor again. He's got the habit, I guess, and can't resist, if he sees an opening. Then, at noon, on his way home, why, of course, he'll stop at the big oak to add what he took to the others. You will be hiding right there with me and we can give Gabe the surprise of his life."
"I should think that would be a splendid idea, Fred," Miss Muster said, nodding her head approvingly. "I suppose that it would be what they say in the newspaper accounts of an arrest in the big cities, 'caught with the goods on!'"